Academics

Union Hospital in Terre Haute, Indiana, joined the ranks of five other hospitals across Indiana who have pledged their support to the university’s new College of Osteopathic Medicine. The hospital has invested $100,000 in the project. To recognize their generosity, the café area in the Michael A Evans Center for Health Sciences will be named in their honor.
“Union Hospital is committed to improving healthcare through access to high-quality providers in underserved areas,” said Scott L. Teffeteller, president and chief executive officer of Union Hospital. He noted that the medical students who train at Marian University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine will be encouraged to seek clerkships in medically underserved areas across Indiana in the hope that they will remain in those communities and address head-on the growing shortage of doctors. “We’ve had a leading role in educating and training physicians at our hospital and we are partnering with universities to make a positive impact at the state and national level to meet the demand,” Teffeteller continued.
Indiana is already facing a shortage of doctors, and as the population ages, by 2020, will be short 5,000 physicians and need 2,000 more primary care physicians (by 2030 that number approaches 5,000). “Putting osteopathic physicians who are interested in primary care into the pipeline is our answer to this pressing concern,” said Dr. Paul Evans, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine. Approximately 41 percent of DOs go into family medicine and nearly 60 percent into primary care practice, and a higher percentage of them practice in rural and underserved areas.
The Michael A. Evans Center for Health Sciences is a $55 million construction project scheduled to open in the summer of 2013. It will house the new medical school and the School of Nursing, and is part of a larger health and life sciences initiative on campus with financial needs totaling $160 million. For more information, visit the web site atwww.marian.edu/medicalschool.